Rodrigo Aguilar v. Knueppel

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• Decided: March 27, 2024
• Docket: 23-15442
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MAR 27 2024 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

RODRIGO BENITO AGUILAR, No. 23-15442

Plaintiff-Appellant, D.C. No. 2:21-cv-02214-DWL-MTM v.

KNUEPPEL, Det., Mesa Police Department, MEMORANDUM* #21600; et al.,

Defendants-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Arizona Dominic Lanza, District Judge, Presiding

Submitted March 27, 2024** San Francisco, California

Before: FRIEDLAND, SANCHEZ, and H.A. THOMAS, Circuit Judges.

Plaintiff-Appellant Rodrigo Benito Aguilar (“Aguilar”) appeals the district

court’s order granting summary judgment to Defendants Michael Knueppel, Eli

Elliott, Richard Bates, and Joel Hight (“Defendants”) on qualified immunity

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2). grounds. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. Reviewing de novo,

Torres v. City of Madera, 648 F.3d 1119, 1123 (9th Cir. 2011), we affirm.

Aguilar filed this § 1983 action raising Fourth Amendment excessive force

claims against Defendants related to their actions in arresting him after he was

suspected of stealing a car at gunpoint.1 Defendants are entitled to qualified

immunity because, viewing the facts in the light most favorable to Aguilar, a

reasonable officer would have believed that the “nature and quality of the intrusion

on [Aguilar’s] Fourth Amendment interests” were justified by the “countervailing

governmental interests at stake,” and Defendants therefore did not violate

Aguilar’s Fourth Amendment rights. Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 396

(1989) (quoting Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U.S. 1, 8 (1985)); see also Torres, 648

F.3d at 1123 (holding that an officer may be denied qualified immunity at the

summary judgment stage only if (1) the evidence “taken in the light most favorable

to the party asserting injury, show[s] that the officer’s conduct violated a

constitutional right, and (2) the right at issue was clearly established at the time of

the incident such that a reasonable officer would have understood her conduct to be

unlawful in that situation”).

1 Although Aguilar labeled Count III of his First Amended Complaint as a medical care claim, it appears to be a continuation of his excessive force claim, and to the extent it raises a separate claim for lack of medical care, it does not allege that he did not receive proper medical care and in fact admits that he was hospitalized following the incident.

2 Defendants Knueppel, Elliott, and Hight used an intermediate “quantum of

force” in arresting Aguilar, and Defendant Bates used minor force. Drummond ex

rel. Drummond v. City of Anaheim, 343 F.3d 1052, 1056 (9th Cir. 2003). After the

high-speed car chase ended in Officer Bates executing a PIT maneuver and

Aguilar’s car flying into oncoming traffic,2 Aguilar ran out of the car, and

Defendants ran after him. Officer Elliott tased Aguilar in the back in “dart mode”

after yelling “Taser! Taser!” at him. Officer Elliott then pressed the button on his

taser a second time to deliver an additional electrical charge.3 We have previously

held that the use of a taser in dart mode constitutes “an intermediate, significant

level of force.” Bryan v. MacPherson, 630 F.3d 805, 826 (9th Cir. 2010).

Once Aguilar fell to the ground, Officer Knueppel got on his back and

punched him several times in the back of the head. At the same time, Officer

Hight struck Aguilar several times in his side. Officer Bates held down Aguilar’s

legs and helped handcuff him. “We have recognized that ‘physical blows or cuts’

often constitute a more substantial application of force than categories of force that

do not involve a physical impact to the body.” Nelson v. City of Davis, 685 F.3d

2 Aguilar does not appear to allege that the PIT maneuver constituted excessive force. 3 Although Officer Elliott states in his declaration that he does not believe the second electrical charge went through because he had reason to believe the taser was no longer working, Aguilar states that he was tased multiple times, and we resolve disputes of fact in Aguilar’s favor. See Torres, 648 F.3d at 1123.

3 867, 878 (9th Cir. 2012) (quoting Forrester v. City of San Diego, 25 F.3d 804, 807

(9th Cir. 1994)). Because Officers Knueppel and Hight’s uses of force were

“capable of inflicting significant pain and causing serious injury,” they constitute

“intermediate force.” Young v. County of Los Angeles, 655 F.3d 1156, 1161 (9th

Cir. 2011). Officer Bates’s efforts to hold down Aguilar’s legs and to help

handcuff him, however, constituted a minor application of force.

The amount of force Defendants used was justified by the Government’s

interests, which we determine were significant here by looking to “the severity of

the crime at issue, whether the suspect pose[d] an immediate threat to the safety of

the officers or others, and whether he [was] actively resisting arrest or attempting

to evade arrest by flight.” Graham, 490 U.S. at 396. Defendants had been

informed by a dispatcher that Aguilar was actively fleeing an armed carjacking and

that during the car chase he had already hit multiple vehicles, was ignoring red

lights and stop signs, and was driving at a high speed. Not only, therefore, was

Aguilar fleeing arrest for a number of serious crimes, but Defendants had reason to

believe he was armed and posed a risk to their safety. See Johnson v. County of

Los Angeles, 340 F.3d 787, 793 (9th Cir. 2003) (holding that an armed robbery

suspect posed an “obvious and significant danger to the police and others,”

particularly after he had engaged in a high-speed chase with police). Although

Aguilar claims that he did not have a gun, he does not dispute that the officers were

4 told he had just robbed a car at gunpoint, and we must judge Defendants’ use of

force “from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, rather than with

the 20/20 vision of hindsight.” Graham, 490 U.S. at 396. While Aguilar was

running on foot, Officers Knueppel, Elliott, and Bates saw Aguilar reach for his

waistband, which, even if Aguilar was in reality simply trying to pull up his pants,

could have led a reasonable officer to believe at the time that he may be reaching

for a gun. Aguilar also fled into an apartment complex, which could have led a

reasonable officer to worry he would pose a danger to bystanders. A reasonable

officer therefore could have believed that tasing Aguilar was necessary to prevent

him from hurting officers or bystanders.

Even once Aguilar had been tased, he continued to squirm, suggesting that

he was not entirely incapacitated.4 When he was on the ground, his hands were

underneath his body, near his waistband. A reasonable officer therefore could

have believed that hitting Aguilar in the head and side and holding down his legs

was needed to disorient or incapacitate him so that he could be handcuffed and to

prevent him from reaching for a gun or otherwise hurting the officers or

4 Although Aguilar claims at times that he did not struggle once he was tased, that claim is contradicted by the video evidence, as well as his other statements, which at least establish that his hands were under him near his waist, that he was writhing on the ground, and officers struggled to get him into handcuffs. We need not accept Aguilar’s allegations when they are clearly contradicted by video evidence in the record. Hernandez v. Town of Gilbert, 989 F.3d 739, 743 (9th Cir. 2021).

5 bystanders.

For the foregoing reasons, we AFFIRM.